Kariba hydro power station 75% complete

The Kariba South hydro power station expansion project which is expected to be completed by March next year is well on course with 74.5 percent of the project having been covered so far.

The project is expected to feed 300 megawatts into the national grid.

The US$533 million power expansion project which was started last year is progressing well with everything now in place for the ZIM ASSET project to be completed on time despite some challenges the contractors faced in the course of the works.

In his presentation at the ongoing Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) workshop underway in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) project manager Engineer Edmond Mukahadira says the project is currently five weeks behind schedule but they have put in place mechanisms to ensure that unit 7 will be operational by December this year.

“We are saying we have had glitches along the way. We have had some price indices adjustments but we are making the necessary adjustments to meet our target and come December, Zimbabwe will have a Christmas present as we commission one of the units,” says Mr Mukahadira.

Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop, SAPP chief engineer Alison Chikova says the workshop is aimed at coming up with strategies on strengthening the trade in power amongst Southern African countries.

“We are working on ensuring that we strengthen the trade of power amongst Southern African countries. We are saying as a regional grouping it’s time we work together and come up with ideas on how best we can generate enough power to meet our deficit,” Chikova said.

The whole of SADC region is facing a deficit of around 6 000 megawatts with Zimbabwe alone having a shortfall of around 1 300 megawatts.

The four day SAPP symposium is running under the theme , ‘Meeting Demand Through Sustainable Projects -Implementation and Efficient Regional Electricity Trading”